The Valley of Silent Men eBook

And now it was no longer fear that possessed him.
It was the horrible, overwhelming certainty of the
thing. The years fell from him, and he sobbed—­sobbed
like a boy stricken by some great childish grief,
as he searched along the edge of the shore. Over
and over again he cried and whispered Marette’s
name.

But he did not shout it again, for he knew that she
was dead. She was gone from him forever.
Yet he did not cease to search. The last of the
sun went out. Twilight came, and then darkness.
Even in that darkness he continued to search for a
mile below the Chute, calling her name more loudly
now, and listening always for the answer which he
knew would never come. The moon came out after
a time, and hour after hour he kept up his hopeless
quest. He did not know how badly the rocks had
battered and hurt him, and he scarcely knew when it
was that exhaustion dropped him like a dead man in
his tracks. When dawn came, it found him wandering
away from the river, and toward noon of that day,
he was found by Andre Boileau, the old white-haired
half-breed who trapped on Burntwood Creek. Andre
was shocked at the sight of his wounds and half dragged
and half carried him to his shack hidden away in the
forest.

For six days thereafter Kent remained at old Andre’s
place, simply because he had neither the strength
nor the reason to move. Andre wondered that there
were no broken bones in him. But his head was
terribly hurt, and it was that hurt that for three
days and three nights made Kent hover with nerve-racking
indecision between life and death. The fourth
day reason came back to him, and Boileau fed him venison
broth. The fifth day he stood up. The sixth
he thanked Andre, and said that he was ready to go.

Andre outfitted him with old clothes, gave him a supply
of food and God’s blessing. And Kent returned
to the Chute, giving Andre to understand that his
destination was Athabasca Landing.

Kent knew that it was not wise for him to return to
the river. He knew that it would have been better
for him both in mind and body had be gone in the opposite
direction. But he no longer had in him the desire
to fight, even for himself. He followed the lines
of least resistance, and these led him back to the
scene of the tragedy. His grief, when he returned,
was no longer the heartbreaking agony of that first
night. It was a deep-seated, consuming fire that
had already burned him out, heart and soul. Even
caution was dead in him. He feared nothing, avoided
nothing. Had the police boat been at the Chute,
he would have revealed himself without any thought
of self-preservation. A ray of hope would have
been precious medicine to him. But there was no
hope. Marette was dead. Her tender body
was destroyed. And he was alone, unfathomably
and hopelessly alone.